Understanding
by Higurazel
Summary: Final sequel to the Domino City Police Department AU of Details. Thornshipping (Anzu X Yami Malik). Journalist Anzu, working on the story of the Domino City Ripper, returns home to find a mauled body waiting for her. She's gotten someone's attention... Warning for Violence.


**DOMINO CITY**

**ANZU MAZAKI'S APARTMENT**

**DECEMBER 1****ST**

**11:14 PM**

The flash of a camera bulb was followed by an instant whine in the gloom. The police were taking care to photograph almost every inch of the apartment, leaving Anzu with an equal mix of security and utter violation. At the centre of her apartment's living room, sprawled out over the table, the corpse looked like he, it, was basking in the attention, arms thrown wide and head back. The tapping of thick blood against the carpet had stopped a short while ago, the body finally running dry. From what the police had estimated, he couldn't have been here longer than an hour, maybe two. Whoever had done this, they had completed their task and left shortly before Anzu had returned home. A few more minutes and she may have bumped into them. It wasn't a thought she wanted to dwell on. It was, in fact, one of several thoughts she wanted far out of her head right now.

"Cab driver," one of the investigator's had muttered after picking up an ID clipped to the corpse's breast pocket. The shirt itself drooped in strange folds, matted with blood and torn by a jagged blade. Each time Anzu thought she had gotten a grip on the situation, she remembered the look of that body. The open, hollowed out chest. The glyphs carved into his belly. She gagged, clutching herself, pulling the blanket the police had given her tighter round her shoulders.

"Miss Mazaki," the detective that had been the only person to speak to her all evening approached, his attempt at a warm, comforting smile falling desperately short. "We should probably get you out of here. I don't think there's much of a reason for you to stay any longer. Is there anyone you can go to at the moment?"

Anzu shook her head, unable to look up at the detective. "No," she muttered. "Pretty much everyone I know is out of town."

"Not to worry, miss." The detective motioned for a few uniformed officers. "We have a safe house for use in this sort of situation. You can stay there tonight. We'll just need to ask a couple of questions once you get there, then you can get some sleep. We'll watch the place so you don't have to worry. Most of the shock should've worn off by morning."

She could tell he was lying. Everything in his face screamed at her of months, years even of therapy. She sighed. She nodded. The two officers approached, and she left with them into the squad car. Not once did she look up, she never looked back at the apartment. As far as she was concerned, there was no likelihood of her ever returning to it.

**DOMINO CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT SAFE HOUSE**

**DECEMBER 2****ND**

**MIDNIGHT**

"Confirm your name, for the record."

"Anzu Mazaki."

"Occupation?"

"Journalist."

"Ok Miss Mazaki, now these questions are pretty important. It'll really help us if you can answer them, but if at any point you need a break, just let me know. Ok?"

"Ok."

"Explain what happened this evening as you returned home."

Anzu breathed in deep, forcing herself to remember. It was almost as though she could feel her mind scabbing over, trying to delete and rearrange itself.

"I was driven home by a co-worker. We'd been giving each other some feedback on our respective stories."

"And what is your story on?"

"The spate of murders that happened earlier this year. There were some rumblings that the killer might have returned, I was looking into some possible leads."

The police looked a little uncomfortable, passing a glance between them. "So, you arrived home. Then what?"

"I opened my door, stepped inside. I turned on the light. I don't think I saw him straight away. I put my bag down, I took off my coat, that must have been when I heard it. I heard something tapping against the carpet in the living room. I looked over and…" She stopped, swallowing down her nerves.

"And you saw the victim."

She nodded, wordlessly.

"Do you know who he was?"

"One of the officers said he was a cab driver. I don't think I've ever seen him before."

"And have you had any dealings with any particular upset individuals recently?"

"No more so than usual. In my line of work I often have to interview some very unwell people. I guess it goes with the territory."

"And do any of them know you by name?"

The question caught Anzu off guard. Her brow furrowed.

"I always give my card when I conduct an interview, so I suppose anyone I've spoken to in that capacity would know my name. Why?"

Again, the officers passed a nervous glance between each other. One of them pulled out a photograph from an envelope, passing it across the table. It was from her apartment, or from the crime scene as she should now think of it. The photograph showed the ruined chest of the cab driver, a piece of paper fastened to the skin. It was strangely clear, the blood stains merely incidental, spattering the edges. It must have been placed there after he had been killed. The words were clearly visible, almost carved into the page with a thick black pen.

_Anzu Mazaki,_

_I hope this letter finds you well._

_I hear you're writing about me. I can't tell you how excited this makes me. I feel like a celebrity. Perhaps they'll bring me onto that red __**carpet**__ I hear about. Hahaha._

_It would be so __**rude**__ of me to let you work on this __alone.__ How will you ever get the perfect story without understanding it? __Without understanding it__. Without understanding it._

The same words were scrawled over one another again and again, working back and forth, sometimes crossed out, other times left to stand.

_So please accept this gift. It is the first __step__ in helping you understand. Once you understand, you can succeed. I want you to succeed Anzu. If you succeed, then I succeed. I hope you don't __**think**__ that's rude. Me living through you. There are many things I'd like to do through you. There are-_

The bottom of the note was cut off by the limits of the photograph. Anzu could hear the blood pumping like crazy in her ears, her brain swimming in a sickening ocean of dizziness.

"There's more?" She asked, her voice faint.

"Well, yes," the officer admitted, bringing the photograph back. "But there's not much you'll want to see. Whoever wrote this, they went on kind of a rant. There's a lot of references to…" He trailed off, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"To what?"

"Well, your body. The words _Bountiful_ and _Bosom_ get a lot of mention. There's also some talk of various bodily excretions being… used, and some sort of sexual practices that, quite honestly, I wish I'd never had to look up."

Anzu held her head in her hands, drawing in a long, deep breath through her nose. Her eyes had screwed tightly shut. The officers nodded to one another, rising from the table.

"I think we can leave it there for now Miss." A hand was placed on her shoulder, she didn't look up. "You just try and get some sleep. I know that might sound like a challenge given what you've gone through, but trust me, most people the exhaustion catches up with them all at once. You'll see. If you need anything, Officer Green and I will be right outside this door."

In silence, the police left Anzu in the tiny studio apartment. Getting to her shaky feet, she walked to the bathroom, turning on the shower.

**DOMINO CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT SAFE HOUSE**

**DECEMBER 2****ND**

**01:14 AM**

The pipes gurgled and groaned as Anzu shut off the shower. It had taken her the last forty minutes to work up the ability to leave, to step out of the blistering heat. The purging, cleaning blast of the shower. In a way, it sounded as though the water flow were just as reluctant for it all to end. She wrapped a towel around herself and left the bathroom, she turned off the lights almost instantly on entering the rest of the apartment, finding their harsh glare just too much to take right at that moment. Numbness held her tight, smothered her. She dropped the towel as she felt her way along the wall to the bed. She doubted she had ever been this exhausted in her entire life. Anzu threw back the covers.

*schlp*

The wet, sticky sound seemed to linger in the air forever, imprinting itself on her ears. With shaking, frantic hands, she reached for the bed, pressing down into the softness of the mattress, her palm sliding against the cooling mess there. Heart threatening to make a dramatic exit from her body, she reached out for the bedside lamp, flicking it on.

The richest colours of the human visceral palette greeted her eyes. The interior bedclothes were awash with a swirling, congealing mass of reds and blacks and browns. The veritable sea of vital fluids started to cascade onto the bare floorboards, hanging in thick strands from the bedframe.

Anzu heard the scream long before she realised she was making it. She stumbled backwards, dragging the blanket from the bed, revealing the mess of pieces that had once belonged to Officer Green, his face staring up almost accusingly from the centre.

Anzu's foot pressed down on something that gave way, rolling along the floor away from her. She crashed backwards, stomach lurching, the back of her head landing first, hard against the boards. A wave rippled through her skull, and she felt a warm, comfortable sensation through her jaw – Then everything veered into a blissful unconsciousness.

**?**

**?**

**?**

"-nd finding that you were looking for me? Well. It was a delight."

Anzu woke to the tinny sound of a voice being pumped through an old, rotten speaker system. It was an unfamiliar voice, rich tones and a difficult-to-place accent. It was rushed, breathless, excited.

"Ah, and now you're awake. Excellent. I was expecting perhaps you would sleep forever, and we'd never get to making you understand."

She was laid out on a gurney. A filthy, dilapidated thing that stank of the sweat of a hundred thousand strangers. A hospital gown had been placed on her, conspicuously clean, sterile even. Anzu sat up to find herself in what amounted to a cell, brick-walled and oppressive. Her gurney was set against one wall, the other was home to a bench, a black body-bag set out on it. To her right, a high window let in the murkiest light of dawn. To her left, a Perspex wall, framed in iron with enormous rivets holding it in place. A small delivery port was set into one side, but Anzu could only look at it for the briefest of moments, her attention taken up by what stood behind the clear wall.

He was tall, perhaps brushing six and a half feet, lean and muscular. His dark skin was slick with sweat, despite the appallingly low temperature in the room. He was bare chested, and Anzu could make out an intricate maze of scars and brands worked into his flesh, creeping around his sides and ribs from behind. They looked to be fresher the further forward they were, and Anzu realised with horror that the newest were bleeding even now, recently carved into the skin towards his navel. Blonde hair fell in messy spikes against his face, framing the look of absolute joy that twisted up his features, revealed his gleaming teeth.

"I am sorry that you couldn't have a longer sleep," he said, his voice distorted by the grill between them, the speaker woefully decayed. "But there is so much work we have to do."

"You're the one that left that body in my apartment." Anzu said, getting off the gurney. "You're the murderer that went on that spree earlier this year. The Domino Ripper."

"Probably not the name I would have chosen," he said, head drifting, eyes roaming over her cell.

"What's your name then?"

"I don't have one."

"Then what do I call you?"

He paused. Frowning. It wasn't something that had ever occurred to him.

"Call me Malik." He said.

"That isn't your name?"

"It belonged to someone I knew. He doesn't need it anymore. It will be as much use as any other name."

"Well, Malik," Anzu started to take a few steps back into the shadows, away from her captor's gaze. "I'm going to guess you didn't bring me here to kill me. You could've done that at any point."

"I still could. If you like." Malik smiled, pressing his slick, red hand to the wall. "Either way we spend a long time together. I confess, the thought of sliding off that beautiful skin of yours." He shivered, "it excites me deeply."

"Well, not me." Anzu was almost entirely certain her bravado was being fuelled by shock and adrenaline, she wasn't sure how long it would last. "I'd rather not be another Ripper victim, if that's ok."

"I'm no Ripper. I'm an artist. I'm a digger. I'm a rock star. I'm an apricot farmer, given half a chance." His words were piling together into a car crash of sounds and whines. Anzu felt the bravado quiver just a little. "And right now, I'm a helper. I'm Anzu's Little Helper. You want to understand me. You want to get in my head and tell my story. You want to grow rich on my exploits, to dress yourself and fill your body with the finest of excesses. I can give you that. I am all to happy to."

"So you want an interview?"

"Why, said the Dodo, the best way to learn is to do." Malik cocked his head to one side licking his lower lip. He walked to the hatch at the side of the wall, slipping something in and pushing it closed. Anzu approached with caution, opening the door on her side. In the compartment was a knife. Not even a knife. A crudely made prison shiv. It was blunted and bent, but still more than capable of tearing up flesh given enough force.

"What do you want me to do with this?" She asked.

"Use it to understand me. One of the officers that tried to keep you from your big story tonight. He's in that bag over there. Oh now don't give me that look, he's still very much alive. He's been paralysed, a little concoction of my own devising. He'll remain that way for another twenty four hours or so."

Anzu looked across at the body bag, her arms suddenly feeling like dead weights.

"Put his heart, eyes and tongue in the hatch." Malik told her. "Once you've done that, I'll set you free, and give you everything you need to make your story the biggest thing to happen to journalism since Saucy Jacky."

"You're insane!" Anzu shouted, slamming the hatch door closed. "There's no way I'm _murdering_ someone for you!"

"That's a shame, little apricot. Because no-one will come to help you. I'm your only hope of getting out. Please me, you go free. Don't do as I ask, and I will watch you starve to death in your cell. I'll enjoy it too. I'll enjoy it deeply."

Silence, thick and polluted passed through the cell.

"If I can give you a little advice?" Malik seemed to almost sing his words. "He'll be far, far less easy for you to kill once he regains major functions. I'd get to work quickly. Trust me. Once the initial incision is made, the hard part's over."

Anzu turned her back to the Perspex wall, to the grinning monster.

Malik pulled up a chair and sat down heavily, watching with fiendish fascination.

With a sharp intake of breath, Anzu turned back and approached the hatch.


End file.
